Trapped
by Neko Kuroban
Summary: There are only three sins - causing pain, causing fear, and causing anguish. The rest is window dressing." - Roger Caras


The girl's hands were clasped tightly before her lavender chiffon dress, as she curled into the corner. Her knuckles were a pale white - whiter than her normal, unhealthy pallor, an effect of growing up in New England, where the outside air smelled of salt and sea, and inside the large manor the air was scented of her mother's rose perfume...  
  
Outside, thunder crashed and she bit her lip to keep from whimpering. She wasn't weak, she wasn't! She tore her small fingers apart and lifted a hand, grabbing her thick plait and bringing it around to hang loosely over a shoulder. Her shoulders were surprisingly broad for such a young girl, and yet they were so sharp. Her woven braid was a matted, tangled mess, and the pale lilac ribbon was untied, barely keeping the thick hair together.  
  
She tugged on the ridiculously wide satin ribbon, causing it to come out in her hands, her hair coming undone. Her tresses were thick and reddish-gold, with the faintest hint of brown, auburn in color, setting her apart from the other girls. Her hair - straight as a stick, her mother would occasionally grumble before events such as Christmas or birthdays, needing to be tied in rags overnight to get even the slightest wave for the holidays - framed her gray eyes, taciturn and jaded for such a child.  
  
She was mature for her age, always found curled with a book, much to the displeasure of the teachers at her boarding school. "It's not ladylike." They would chide, drawing the books - the only things that really gave her pleasure - out of her grasp.  
  
She had her own private room at that school, due to her father's manipulations - and the fact that none of the other boarders were willing to share a room with her, and it was just as well.  
  
She did not act the same way as the other girls - they preferred to giggle over their dolls and spent their lessons meticulously rearranging the frills on the bell-shaped skirts of their dresses, while she was far too good at her mathematics lessons and had a knack for foreign languages and disliked playing with dolls. She had always felt that lovely things, such as the beautiful dollhouse her father had given her on her fifth birthday, were to be admired, placed behind a glass case, were she could not ruin them.  
  
She liked to daydream.  
  
It was a hidden comfort, but the way she made it through days was to wait until the sunset and she could crawl beneath the quilt in one of the nightgowns her mother bought for her, so frilly and beribboned that she could not lay flat no matter how she tossed and turned. Dreaming was an escape, where she could close her eyes and pretend that the world was as bright as the sunlight that stole through beautiful stained glass windows and past pale silk draperies, spilling a rainbow of light along the white carpet. It provided such an escape for her, away from the world of whispers.  
  
"Beautiful mother. Pity the child did not get her looks."  
  
"She's such a serious little thing!"  
  
"The little sailor's wife," her father would tease when he was in a rare, amiable mood. He would watch as she sat in the window seat, her legs curled beneath her, her fingers clasped in her lap. She always sat so perfectly still, as if she were afraid of her mother finding her and admonishing her for fidgeting, as she stared out the window, her gray eyes the same color of the New England sky as she watched the ships rise over the harbor.  
  
Thunder rolled again, and she knew lightening would follow. It was the lightening she was more terrified of, the fingers reaching across the skies slowly.  
  
The storm crashed again, rattling the old manor.  
  
She tried not to cry out. Instead, she bit her lip until blood swelled it. She could not bear this any longer. Her clenched fists banged against the door. "Let me out!" She cried, her voice hoarse. "Mama! Papa! Please! I'll be good! I won't cry anymore!"  
  
She hated being trapped in this small, unused closet, the only thing hanging in there a few of her mothers unused, full-length furs, put in storage for the summer. The girl had tugged a mink coat free, several hours prior, and tried to wrap it around her shoulders. Presently, her breath hitched shortly, over and over, in her throat. She dragged a frilled sleeve across her eyes - pointless frippery, her father would say, angrily wiping away the tears that stung at her cloudy gray eyes. They were the color of the summer storm raging outside - oh, God in Heaven, please let it be over soon, she prayed.  
  
Thunder boomed again outside.  
  
She wasn't afraid of the storm! She could not be. Papa wouldn't like it, he'd locked her in here for crying earlier this afternoon, and he never could tolerate any of her failures. "You are nearly nine years old, Olivia. Much too old to be carrying on the way you were over a storm." Her father had chided, disapproval etching his features.  
  
She was so hungry... How much time had passed? She tugged the furs closer around her legs. 'So dark,' she thought, an ear pressing against the thick paneled wall. She could not hear anything but the sound of faint footsteps coming from somewhere. Were they going to let her out? Suddenly, her mothers delicate laughter rang from the other side of the thick wall. She could hear her father's voice, a low baritone, but could not make out the words.  
  
"Let's go, darling," she could hear her mother say. The voice was distant and muffled.  
  
The girl's thin lips trembled as her legs drew up closer to her small chest.  
  
A tear ran down her cheek, a soft whimper escaping her.  
  
And, Olivia realized, slowly, that she could not be weak anymore. 


End file.
